


Long-Delayed Reunion

by Jedi Buttercup (jedibuttercup)



Series: Sidle Up and Smile [7]
Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Firefly
Genre: Backstory, Challenge Response, Crossover, Family Drama, Gen, Post-Serenity, Reunions, Wordcount: 5.000-10.000
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-08-17
Updated: 2013-09-03
Packaged: 2017-10-22 17:33:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 5,900
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/240703
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jedibuttercup/pseuds/Jedi%20Buttercup
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mal was her son, all right: oddly perceptive at the most inconvenient times, and obstinately blind when he didn't care to see what was in front of him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Long-Delayed Reunion

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It just meant one more woman joinin' the crew that Jayne didn't dare touch 'less she showed up in his bunk of her own accord.

Wasn't but a week after Wash died that Mal had managed to find the ship another pilot. Not that crazy-girl was all that awful at it, but Jayne found it impossible to sleep easy when they were in the Black with her behind the yoke all the same. He'd seen her lose her nut too many times-- suffered for it more'n once-- to trust that she would stay on an even keel, just 'cause they'd figured out _why_ she was crazy.

Mal's _new_ pilot came with her own set of complications, though, that bid fair to make up for that shiny license in her wallet. Because she was also the captain's _aunt_. Either Mal's momma had had her a baby sister young enough to be her own daughter, or some blood uncle of his had married a girl as much younger'n him as Mal was to River, 'cause his Aunt Fay was definitely a _piàoliang de xiăojie_ , no older than Kaylee or 'Nara.

The shape on that woman. Whoo-ee. One look at her swannin' in to pay her respects to Book's grave and Jayne had lost all interest in spending the night alone in his bunk with a jug of rotgut. Her greeting to Mal had tamed Jayne's tongue a little, but not his eyes nor his pecker, and when she'd come over that night to shoot the shit he'd taken great pleasure in plying her with alcohol and telling her all manner of thrillin' stories. 'Course, she'd ended up drinking _him_ under the table, but it had been worth it to hear her laugh. And over breakfast, she'd promised to meet Mal at the Maidenhead soon's she had time to settle her affairs and take over as pilot 'til River was full trained.

Jayne had to admit, she _had_ seemed more concerned about their _yúbèn de_ captain, and not in the lustful way, than could be accounted for by no piece of paper, which probably meant she really _was_ a blood relation. Which meant one more woman joinin' the crew that Jayne didn't dare touch 'less she showed up in his bunk of her own accord and took him to hand; between Kaylee, the grievin' widow, the doc's crazy sis, and the Companion Mal spent his time moonin' over, the ship had plenty of eye candy but slim pickings for a man looking for a pipe-cleaning. And now the captain's aunt? _Āiyā_. Wasn't rightly fair.

Three weeks, she'd said. So three weeks after lifting away from the funeral, they were making their way back to Beaumonde to pick up a new job and new pilot in the same stop. They walked down an all too familiar set of steps into a bar as still bore the marks of River's tantrum; they'd left her behind so as not to upset their hosts and hike up their percentage yet again, but Jayne still shivered a little as he locked away his gun, some instinct crawling up his spine and warning him of hidden dangers.

He shook it off, though; only made sense the twins would have hired new plainclothes security, what with the unrest crawling through the midworlds since Miranda. He shared a wary glance with Zoe, makin' sure the Captain's second was wary, too, then followed Mal over to Fanty and Mingo's private business table.

The brunette was there, waiting: all leather and curves and smooth skin begging for the touch of a man's tongue, just like before. Jayne licked his lips, then gave Mal a furtive look to make sure he hadn't noticed his merc's reaction to his aunt-- and dropped a hand to the empty holster at his hip, all his nerves set afire again by the look on Mal's face. Rigid jaw, pale cheeks, hollow eyes-- that was his _chúfēi wŏ sĭ le_ face, not the way Jayne would have expected him to greet her after last time.

But then again, the aunt weren't alone. Next to her, dressed near the same with a touch of kohl around eyes the same color as Mal's and sun-bleached brown hair pulled back from her face, another woman was just getting up from her chair. Her expression was near the match of his, with a tiny curl twitchin' its way toward a smile at the corner of her mouth.

"Mal," she said, calmly.

" _Cào_ ," the other woman muttered, the sound carrying in the suddenly quiet space between the groups.

Mal swallowed, then stepped forward, closing until he was standing practically on top of the much shorter woman. Then he opened his mouth and answered her. "Ma."

" _Cào_ ," Jayne echoed the one called Fay. 'Cause if that woman, who looked no older than Mal's aunt, was Mal's long-dead _mother_...

Things were about to get a whole lot more interestin' aboard _Serenity_.


	2. What Separates Heroes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mal couldn't have said how long it took for the roaring in his ears to fade.

Mal couldn't have said how long it took for the roaring in his ears to fade; not that it mattered, as she hadn't said nothing else he would have needed to respond to. And good thing, too. He'd seen her often enough in his dreams since the bombing of Shadow, rocking on the front porch while the sky tore open above her; watching her stand up next to Fay in the Maidenhead was like seeing a ghost walk out of his nightmares.

Gradually, though, he became aware of a dim throbbing pain in his left arm, and glanced down to see dark fingers dug into the meat of his bicep. He blinked at 'em, then shot a look over his shoulder at Zoë, and it were her expression more'n anything that brought the rest of the world rushing back to him.

Right. There to broker a deal. Which he was nowise going to be able to focus on, now.

"You might want to take this back to the ship, sir," she said, quietly. "Jayne and I can dicker with Fanty and Mingo without you."

He felt his ma's gaze still on him like a brand, close enough to reach out and touch; he ignored it with a heavy effort, cudgeling his brain to make sense of Zoë's words and muster a response. "You know they're like to raise the percentage again if'n I'm not here to flatter 'em," he pointed out.

"They're surer to raise it if you do," Zoë replied, dryly, "considerin' what happened the _last_ time your 'domestic troubles' interrupted their business." She shot a flat, unfriendly look past him – the look she turned on _intruders_ – and Mal felt a sudden, hot mixture of gratitude and defensiveness well up to displace the numbness.

Elizabeth Reynolds was his Ma. But Elizabeth Reynolds had been dead nigh on a decade, burned up with the ranch that had been Mal's childhood home. And – the thought occurred to him as he turned back to her, studying her face with eyes that saw the truth of things rather than shadows out of dream – she'd never looked quite that young before, neither. He might as well be living a leaf out of a storybook for all he could make sense of it. And he felt a little less like spinning off into the Black with the reminder that the rock of Zoë would still be there no matter what his Ma's resurrection might herald.

"I'm not here to cause trouble," she said softly, answering both Zoë's comment and his own fears in that knowing way that'd had him thinking she was some kind of divine avatar when he was small. 'Course, his Aunt Fay's stories of demon-fighting hadn't helped with that none; but she was a perceptive woman, and no mistake. And… maybe those stories had been a little less fanciful than he'd thought, if she was actually _here_ , after everything.

"Didn't expect you were," he blurted. "Didn't expect you at all, actually. Ever. Ma...." He trailed off, voice thick in his throat.

Her lower lip wavered, and her eyes took on a shine; but no tears fell. None ever had; he'd never seen her cry, come hell or high water, cattle rustlers or drought or a slashed cheekbone from a belligerent _húndàn_ who broke a bottle on the bar 'fore she could knock him down, nor even on his daddy's death day.

She'd smiled a lot more, when he was little. But never cried. And after, her smiles had all faded, shadows of the bright joy they'd held before. He'd never doubted she still loved him, though. Fiercely, and mostly at arm's length, but she'd raised him as strong and as upright as she knew how.

Shimmer in her eyes like that – he took it like a body blow, and broke, opening his arms to her. He'd grown tall enough to tuck her under his chin even 'fore he volunteered for the war; the press of hair against his throat and tough, lean muscle under his hands brought their last farewell rising to the forefront of his thoughts. She hadn't been happy to see him go, but she had been _proud_ , and she'd hugged him tight enough to leave bruises before she'd let him on the transport.

Something felt different about it, though. And not just the natural distortion of memory after a long absence. Mal pulled back after a moment, frowning down at her, and finished off the sentence he'd let drop before: "…have you gained weight?"

Her jaw dropped instantly, expression washed clean in surprise; then she snorted and smacked the back of one hand across his chest. " _That's_ the first question you ask me? Malcolm Wesley Reynolds!"

Yep. Definitely his Ma, impossible or not.

"Wesley?" Jayne commented, indignant. "And y'all make fun of _my_ name?"

His Aunt Faith snickered, reminding Mal again that there _were_ other people present. "Still your kid, B. What'd you expect? His lieu's right, though; we'd better take this back to his ship. Keep our personal business off the public feeds."

His mother blinked at that, then glanced around; there were a lot of other conversations going on in the Maidenhead, people bartering and drinking and indulging other vices as could get a man fined on Londinium, but every third pair of eyes or so were already straying their direction. Fact was, they were a fair motley group, and the public reunion, being both more tactile and less vulgar than most folk in the joint were used to seeing a man approach a woman, had drawn its share of attention. Mal noticed her noticing that; then she drew herself up into the compact figure of authority as had ruled four dozen ranch hands once upon a time without hardly lifting a finger, and nodded.

There was a bit more air they needed to clear first, though. "What do I tell the dock authorities?"

"Officially, I've decided I want to see the worlds on the cheap, so I'm signing on as your passenger," she said, with a slight, edged smile. "Unofficially, I'm here because my dear friend Charity Chase…"

"By which, she means me…" Fay smirked.

"…has taken leave of her sanity to pilot for a notorious Independent; and in the interests of guarding her virtue and finding new and interesting subjects to write Cortex articles about, I invited myself along."

"You mean, as far as Alliance is concerned," Mal caught on, recognizing her smirk with a certain degree of apprehension. "So what's your un, unofficial reason, the one Badger will sniff out like _níushĭ_ and pay folk to tell? 'Cause you for damn sure wouldn't be here if all you wanted was–"

He cut himself off there for prudence's sake, but his mental cogs were already turning. His ma wasn't one for subtle action, but she could plan an assault as well as any general when she was of a mind. All too many competitors and ill-wishers had found that out the hard way when they'd tried to steal or manipulate business out from under a poor, newly-widowed slip of a ranch owner. The question was, how the _guĭ_ did she end up playing such games out _here_? He had no doubt the rest of the answers he wanted were bound up in that one.

She gave him an apologetic grimace. "Far as any clues should lead? I'm a high-end merc named Xiăochén, subcontracting on the cheap in this time of unrest since my _mèimèi_ took a shine to _your_ merc and wanted help keeping him in one piece." She smiled past Mal at Jayne, all teeth; behind him, he heard the other man shuffle his feet.

"News to me," Jayne said, but he didn't exactly sound upset, neither.

Mal suppressed the urge to shudder as he recalled his aunt and Jayne singing a round of "The Hero of Canton" last time they'd crossed paths; it took on less mocking-of-Mal qualities and more corner of _not my business_ and _oh God I can't know that_ in hindsight.

_Stood up to the man and gave him what for…_

He blinked those images away and nodded. "Kaylee's our keeper of fare; you can talk to her later, 'board ship, about the details…"

"…Wait, you're actually gonna charge your ma a fare?" Jayne blurted.

"… _Bì zuĭ_ , Jayne; and as for the rest of it; Zoë?"

"If you're satisfied she is who she says she is?" his second replied with a careful shrug.

"Then we'll get into the rest of it on _Serenity_ ," he allowed.

His ma nodded; then laid a hand on his arm, attitude suddenly a mite hesitant. "If there'd been another way, Mal… I'm not proud of keeping quiet, but I did what I thought I had to, to protect everyone."

"I'm not everyone; I'm your only child," he blurted in stung reply.

"Not… only," she said, looking up at him through guiltily lowered lashes.

His breath caught, frozen in his chest, and he had to swallow hard to break it free, knocked off kilter yet again. "Thought we weren't goin' to finish this here," was all he could find to reply.

She winced, then let go and started for the stairs, spine straight as a fencepost.

" _Dàxiàng bàozhàshì de lā dùzi_ ," Faith swore, then started after her, tugging at Mal's arm. "Told her this wouldn't go smooth. C'mon, _wài shēng_ ; point us at your ship before she gets lost."

Mal hesitated, glancing over at Zoë and Jayne; Zoë made a shooing gesture, her intent clear.

He swallowed, tasting rosemary and gall, and followed after his mother.


	3. Breath and Shadow

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mal was her son, all right: oddly perceptive at the most inconvenient times, and obstinately blind when he didn't care to see what was in front of him.

Xiăochén Williams breathed deeply as she strode through shadowed streets, leaving the noisy, smoke-hazed atmosphere of the Maidenhead behind her. Mal was the first child she'd raised to adulthood since Dawn; the first of her kids to ever discover even a fraction of who she really was. It stung to hear the note of betrayed accusation in his voice, but she knew she deserved it.

Buffy Summers had been a well-honed blade by the time Earth had fallen to the demons, all softness bled from her spirit, and she'd never really managed to recover. More like, never really _tried_ to; after five hundred years, she'd learned to admit her own weaknesses. The less exposed she was, fewer ties she had, the lower her risk of taking hurt; but she also craved the warmth of passion, hoping to find that one who could relight in her the fire that had been quenched so long ago in a sacrificial grave.

It hadn't worked with Spike, nor Angel when they'd met again after Sunnydale, nor any man since. She'd never been able to stop trying, though; a creature of habit to the last. Both of the so-called Ancient Slayers were, actually; Buffy blamed it on the huntress' instincts they'd inherited from Sineya. It was just that Faith had made peace with her own drives long before the Awakening froze the maturity of every Slayer Called in Sunnydale during that last chaotic battle.

None of the veterans of the fight against the First under the Seal had died naturally. And those already Called... after a while, Buffy and Faith had discovered they couldn't die _unnaturally_ , either. Willow had claimed they were doubly blessed. Buffy'd never had the heart to tell her how wrong she was.

She shook her head as she walked past the first row of ships at the local noncommercial docks. Fortunately, the side-effects had been magical only, not genetic; she was no X-Woman, and none of her children had been any more gifted than the first Slayer's child she'd ever met: the last principal of Hellmouth High. Except for the fact that she'd had them at all. Buffy had believed herself sterile after the many abdominal wounds she'd taken over the years and the radiation exposure she'd suffered during the last war before the Migration, and hadn't really mourned what she'd assumed she would never have. But her augmented Slayer healing could overcome _any_ damage, apparently, if given enough time; and one day she'd woken on a generation ship to a tiny flutter of movement stirring beneath her heart.

For the first few years, she'd been too caught up in the novelty of it to look for the catch; she'd actually believed the Powers had decided to let her go, that she was _finally_ getting a chance to live the life destiny had repeatedly denied her. But the delusion hadn't been destined to last. As much time as they spent in closed quarters on their tightly packed colony vessel, her partner had been bound to eventually buy a clue. Unfortunately, he'd told the wrong person what he'd seen – and that had been the end of that life.

Her personal hatred of the Alliance sprang from very deep roots.

Ever since, she'd left her children behind before they were old enough to remember; had dumped any significant other who'd started asking perceptive questions. They were all much safer that way. The Alliance never found out who she really was; the Council learned not to look too hard when she changed her name and dropped off the Cortex; and if she never exactly made it all the way up the scale to _happiness_ any more... well, she did manage _contentment_ sometimes. And there'd been more of that on Shadow than she'd found in a long while.

Most of her babies grew up fine and strong without her, her primary contribution thinning the demon presence on the worlds of their birth or the occasional anonymous donation. Most even found causes and territories of their own to defend, later. Mal and his one half-sister to survive the war were no exception – though she doubted he'd see it quite that way; she'd _heard_ about his visits to Whitefall. And her further descendants... she didn't track them all, and they weren't all good people, but they all left their mark one way or another.

That was one reason why she hadn't stopped having them; permanent contraceptives weren't possible for her, but the 'verse hadn't forgotten condoms. She was a destroyer of worlds, not a builder – but there was some of Dawn and Joyce in each of her children, too. They could do and be things she and her sister had never lived to accomplish – every one held endless potential.

Yes, and opportunities for vicarious living, too. Maybe that was selfish of her, but it kept her feet moving. And as bad as things got sometimes, she'd never been one to lay herself down willing.

These last thirty years had upset all her patterns, though. Buffy slowed as she walked by a slip hosting a vessel with a familiar profile, and was reminded instantly of the fork in the road that had set the worlds turning for her again. She looked up at the worn doors closing off the aging ship's cargo bay, the engines standing up like errant elbows above, the arching silver sweep of its neck, and felt her heart catch in her throat. It was newer than the _Jīngwèi_ – the mid-bulk transport of the same class his father had piloted – but still older than most boats that plied the 'verse these days, well-tended. _Píngjìng_ , its insignia read. Of _course_ Mal had chosen a Firefly.

She was still standing there, moments later, when the familiar tread of bootsteps caught up to her. "You wouldn't remember it," she said calmly as the sounds ceased behind her, "but I met your father on a boat a lot like this one. I saw Shadow for the first time from the bridge of a Firefly."

She could hear Mal's startlement in the shift of his stance and sudden intake of breath. "But I thought..." he said, then paused, weighing his words. "You told me our family'd built that ranch more'n twenty years before I was born."

Buffy smiled, slightly. "We did," she said, simply. "Faith did, actually. She went out first with our stake; put both our names on the deed. It just... took me a while to follow her out there."

She'd been a little busy with an outbreak of vampirism on Newhall when Faith had first 'waved her with news. Few vamps had escaped the well of Sol's gravity; those that did had mostly gone to ground, masquerading as men on outer worlds where the radiation of humanity's new suns was too weak for them to burn. They drained few, and turned fewer; only the smartest had made the long trip to the colonies undiscovered. But every once in awhile one of them went crazy or misjudged a new childe. And once she'd finished dealing with _that_ mess, and the Alliance Operatives who'd come in to muddy the aftermath...

Every once in a while, she went a little crazy, too.

"Didn't mind waiting," Faith said, her voice at Mal's side. "You've done it for me, a time or two."

Her son swallowed audibly. "At the risk of askin' another delicate question..." he said, warily.

Buffy hugged her arms more tightly around herself, still looking up at fresh paint laid over deep grooves in the hull, the slightly mismatched engine arms, and the signs of wear on the grating of the lowered docking ramp. "Ship like this, be with you 'til the day you die, he told me," she said, remembering their first meeting like it had been the day before. "Wish he'd stayed with it. Maybe then he wouldn't have."

"What?" Mal replied, startled. "Man who sold me _Serenity_ said much the same thing. Not about her, but I guess it's a common sentiment for the spacefarin' type. I didn't know Pa was, though. What was he doin' on a Firefly?"

She sighed. "Piloting. He stopped when you were two; his captain didn't want to let him go, but Gideon wanted to be there for us, more than the day in every ten they spent on-world. He sold his share for a herd; helped build the ranch back up after a string of hard seasons." She turned then to look at him, at the marks of wear life had left on him: scars visible, invisible, and worn over his shoulders like a shroud.

"Was it really a horse what killed him?" he asked unexpectedly, a frown wrinkling his brow.

"Why do you ask?" she frowned back.

"You stayed," he pointed out. "These other kids of your'n I ain't never heard of before..."

She shook her head. He was her son, all right: oddly perceptive at the most inconvenient times, and obstinately blind when he didn't care to see what was in front of him. "No; there was nothing suspicious about it. I just – I don't know. I guess I'd finally found a place where I felt I belonged. And Gideon didn't have any extended family; it was just me and Fay. You needed me."

He clenched his jaw as he processed what she'd said. " _Xīniú_ Alliance. I thought you'd died a hero. _Guĭ_ , I thought you'd _died_! But this... this thing where you look younger than you got any right to be." He gestured vaguely toward her face. "That's part of why you never told me. Ain't it. How old _are_ you, Mother?"

She smiled wryly at him. "Old enough to know nothing good ever comes of answering that question," she said. "Old enough I don't want to tell you how old your sister is, either. Or how many nieces and great-nephews you have running around."

"Sister?" he replied, blinking a little as the concept derailed whatever he'd meant to say next. "Nieces? _Great_ -nephews?"

"And great, great, great, great, great.... I think. Somewhere over on Osiris?" She tilted her head at him, blinking innocently.

Faith choked in amusement as he gaped at her. "Way to break the news, B," she said.

"I try," Buffy replied, nodding to her Slayer sister.

Mal shook his head, raising a hand to rub at his forehead. " _Wŏ zài qiánshì yīdìng rĕdào shénme rén le ba_ ," he muttered.

In a past life... She swallowed. There _had_ been a faint kernel of doubt haunting her ever since his face grew into his adult features. Caleb's features. She'd never been sure if the First had followed humanity to the stars, and the Bible-clutching phase he'd gone through as a teenager had kept her awake at night more than once. Her first Watcher had told her that _she'd_ been reincarnated. What if he had, too?

Faith threw her a sharp look; they'd had this argument before, and Faith knew Buffy understood more Mandarin than she pretended to. She thought Buffy was imagining things; that there was no point in weighing Mal down with their history with a certain possessed priest.

The thing was, the thing Faith didn't get, was that Buffy didn't care; it wouldn't change the fact that Malcolm Reynolds was her son. She just needed to know what she was up against. Though, weathered as he was by what he'd been through, she was less worried now than when he'd gone to war. He took more after her now than he had at twenty: youthful optimism and patriotism burnt away to reveal an unshakable steel foundation; friends gathered around him whose bonds ran deeper than blood. And he still retained many of the best things she remembered about Gideon, too: deeply feeling, earnest enough to shift worlds with the force of his smile, and fully at home in the horses-and-lasers, steampunky culture of the Black. And she'd always seen a little of Dawn in him around the edges: in the colors of his hair and eyes, in his close-kept love for verse, and in his stubborn insistence on charting his own course.

"If your last life was anything like this one, I wouldn't be too surprised," she said dryly.

And hey, that was as good an explanation for her current life as any: that the Powers had been so annoyed at their Slayer for repeatedly dying at Lothos' hands that they'd decided to make sure she'd never leave a task unfinished again.

There was irony for you. Buffy had done nothing _but_ when not hunting for nearly four hundred and fifty years. Until Gideon. Mal. And Shadow, burned out from under her while she waited for his return.

"I get no respect," Mal sighed theatrically, then walked up to the ship.

It had been easier, with the remnants of Elizabeth Reynolds' life destroyed around her, to pick her up her Council identity again and move on. She hadn't expected the two paths to cross again. But they had. And if the Council's assignment to watch over the likely touchpoint of the next revolution – and, in a subclause she hadn't mentioned even to Faith, investigate the rumors of a girl backing his actions with Slayer-like abilities – turned out to be the work of the Powers setting her up for something even nastier....

_Kàn wŏmen zĕnme sĭ ba_.

For better or for worse, she would be standing at his side when it came.

"Show us your _Serenity_ ," she told her son, calm resolve settling into her bones. "Show us your home. Then I'll sit down and tell you what I can. I don't promise you'll like hearing it, but I think you'll understand better than most why I've done what I've done."

"Fair enough." Troubled eyes met hers; then Mal nodded and opened the door.


	4. The Part Where It's a Trap

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Buffy could feel her all the way across the room, like she could feel Faith: a tickle in the back of her mind that could mean only one thing.

Buffy's first impression of her son's home was of a warm, functional space: cargo tied down to the sides of a wide hold painted a clean, aged silver, scrubbed grates underfoot, and a hovermule chained up above the catwalks. Like the exterior of the ship, like her crew, the interior had seen its fair share of scars, but it was well cared for. At least a few of the things she'd tried to teach him as a child must've stuck.

She followed him across the hold to the stairs, boots striking familiar echoes off the metal walls. It really didn't look much like the _Jīngwèi_ , the ship his father had piloted, now that they were inside, but the _sounds_ were the same, from the way voices and footsteps reverberated through the air ducts to the faint thrum of the engine spinning quietly at rest. It wasn't home to her the way it obviously was to Mal-- she could _see_ him relaxing with every step further up and in-- but it did remind her of better, more hopeful times. Gideon had been a better man than she had deserved.

So was Mal, really. Even without the Council's urging, she probably would have looked him up again after the Miranda broadwave; she was prouder of him than she could ever say. Ship, cause, and crew, he'd chosen well-- especially his lieutenant, who'd stepped up to his shoulder without pause or doubt when Mal had reacted poorly to Buffy's unexpected presence. She was pleased her son had such defenders.

The hasty meeting in the Maidenhead hadn't included all of Mal's crew, though; Buffy kept an eye out for the mechanic, the erstwhile Companion, and the interesting 'passenger' the Council's intel referred to as they reached the heart of the ship, a lounge and kitchen space surrounding a long dining table. Several chairs stood in welcome around the heavy oak expanse, enough for the current crew plus Buffy and Faith-- or the old crew plus a few passengers, before they'd come up against a Parliamentary Operative. A younger woman in flower-patched coveralls with her hair pulled up in tidy buns was already in the room, eyeing the strangers with a cheerful, curious smile.

"Hey, Cap'n," the woman said. "Hey, Miz Fay; nice to see you again! And I'm guessin' you're our new passenger? I'm Kaylee Frye."

"Hey to you, too, Miz Kay," Faith replied with a warm smile as Buffy shook the offered hand.

This had to be the keeper of fare her son had mentioned; and the enthusiastic engineer Faith had spoken about. "As far as records go, I'm Xiăochén Williams, but you can call me Buffy," she said.

"Xiăochén? That's a pretty name; but then, so's Buffy. Unusual," Kaylee smiled back.

"Also news to me," her son grumbled, turning the chair at the head of the table around and plunking himself down on it, arms crossed over the back. "I've heard you called Elizabeth, Liz, Beth, even Bea sometimes when Aunt Fay was around, but never Buffy. That your original name?"

She saw Kaylee startle at his tone, and sighed. "Better call the rest of your crew, _ér zi_ ," she reminded him. "I'd rather explain it as few times as possible."

Especially if the rumored girl-type passenger really was what Buffy suspected; the Alliance's record with Slayers, active and potential both, wasn't pretty. They poached them out from under the Council when they could, and few survived the Blue Hands' less than gentle treatment even when they weren't killed outright. She'd need to hear Buffy's story, and share her own in turn, if she was to _keep_ surviving now that every purple-bellied eye in the Five Systems was watching for her.

Mal raised his eyebrows at Kaylee; the mechanic nodded and turned away, heading for the back of the ship again. "I'll fetch 'Nara," she said. "Simon and River should be in the passenger quarters."

"Hey, you want anything to drink while we're waitin'? Or a snack? Still got me some left over apples from our last market stop," her son's merc, Jayne, murmured to Faith behind her. Apparently the meeting he and Zoë had stayed for hadn't lasted long-- or she'd been lost in thought outside longer than she'd realized.

"Shit, yeah; anything high-proof sounds good," Faith snorted, sidling around the table to drop into the chair two down from Mal. Jayne moved to the wall of cabinet lockers as Zoë headed for an aft stairwell, undoubtedly to collect the afore-mentioned Simon and River.

 _Two_ passengers, then? Right; Buffy had heard somewhere there was a brother. But why did those names sound familiar? She shook her head, then pulled out the chair at Mal's right. This day had been a long time coming, but that hadn't made it any easier to prepare for.

Before she could take her seat, though, a fast clatter of feet came up the stairs from the direction Zoë had taken, and a sudden premonition of dread shot through her. A long-limbed girl all wide eyes, dark hair, and bare feet pelted into the room, outpacing Mal's lieutenant, then skidded to a stop, eyes fixed on Buffy's face.

Buffy could feel her all the way across the room, like she could feel Faith: a tickle in the back of her mind that could mean only one thing. The Slayer had passed; long live the Slayer. And there was something more....

" _Wài pó_?" the girl whispered, her expression the too-familiar _make it better_ of a wounded child. "It isn't right; it isn't fair. We showed them false, but they still haven't stopped!"

"Oh, God," Buffy said; because of _course_. Of _course_. She should have guessed, when she'd heard the rumors about disappearances on Osiris. The Powers could be real assholes that way.

" _Grandmother_?" Mal choked, his tone half-disbelief, half-accusation. "You ain't sayin'...."

Glass shattered on the floor from Jayne's direction. "No ruttin' way."

More feet were approaching from various directions, clamoring questions, but Buffy's arms were suddenly too full of slim, clinging Slayer to track the details.

"I'm here now, _wài sūn nǔ_ ," she murmured into the girl's hair, holding her close. "I'm here," she repeated, looking up through watery eyes to spy a young man who was obviously River's brother, Buffy's several-greats-grandson Simon; Kaylee flocking anxiously to Simon's side; an elegant young woman with worried eyes resting a delicate hand on Mal's shoulder; Jayne, who took a long swig from a bottle, then plunked it on the table in front of Faith; and finally Zoë, who was watching not Buffy but Mal.

For five hundred years, her only tightly-held family in the 'verse had been her sister Slayer; Buffy had preferred it that way, loving lightly to protect her heart from the shattering pain of her last years on Earth. But for better or worse, she had one now, one she wouldn’t be able to leave behind.

The Powers had wanted her back in the game? They'd got her.

But it was going to be on her own terms, or no one's.

"I didn't know you were here," she said to River, to all of them; "but I do, now. And boy, are they gonna regret it."

**Author's Note:**

> Chinese translations (from all chapters):
> 
>  _piàoliang de xiăojie_ \- beautiful young woman  
>  _yúbèn de_ \- dumb  
>  _Āiyā_ \- Damn  
>  _chúfēi wŏ sĭ le_ \- over my dead body  
>  _Cào_ \- Fuck  
>  _húndàn_ \- bastard  
>  _níushĭ_ \- cow dung  
>  _Xiăochén_ \- Dawn  
>  _mèimèi_ \- little sister  
>  _Bì zuĭ_ \- Shut up  
>  _Dàxiàng bàozhàshì de lā dùzi_ \- The explosive diarrhea of an elephant  
>  _wài sheng_ \- nephew  
>  _Píngjìng_ \- Serenity  
>  _Xīniú_ \- Cow-sucking  
>  _Guĭ _\- Hell  
>  _Wŏ zài qiánshì yīdìng rĕdào shénme rén le ba_ \- I surely annoyed someone or other in a past life, didn't I  
>  _Kàn wŏmen zĕnme sĭ ba_ \- Let's watch how we die  
>  _ér zi_ \- son  
>  _Wài pó_ \- Grandmother (mother's mother)  
>  _wài sūn nǔ___ \- granddaughter (daughter's daughter)


End file.
